4,980. As of this moment, that's how many people are registered for the Willow Creek Association Arts Conference this week. It will go up. My wife works in Registration Solutions and always has stories to tell about how "The dog ate my registration" and other tales of woe that need to be sorted out... but eventually all the name badges get distributed and everybody makes it into the auditorium.

Today is the last day of the week that I will be able to find a decent parking spot unless I come in at 6:00 AM. I love it.

I love running into people in the halls trying to find their way around. I love to help them, just to see the looks on their faces when they find out that they are 1/3 of a mile away from their destination... in the same building.

I love to watch people come out of the conference at the end of the day and try to find their car. They are usually so excited to get here that they pay no attention to where they park... then hours later they are simply clueless. We used to do the same thing when we came to conferences here in the '90's. (Now I've worked here for seven years and I still forget where I parked.)

I love seeing old friends. People I've sweated through ministry with or been in a small group with.

But my favorite thing... by far... is to stand in the atrium's second level and look down on table after table of groups... ministry teams from all over the place who are trying to convert their new learnings into practice. Contextualization is often difficult, but it's fun to watch folks who take ministry seriously enough to wrestle with the implications. "Here's a cool idea... how will this play at First Church?"

The blogs are abuzz... looks like a whole bunch of bloggers are going to be here... you can probably follow a lot of the conference online just by reading them.

Here's my question for you Artsy folks... what role do small groups play in your Arts ministry? How do you facilitate community for your artists?